Monday, July 14, 2008

New faces on School Board

Gov. Mike Beebe today began putting his mark on the state Board of Education,

His first two appointees: Little Rock lawyer Sam Ledbetter and Alice Mahony of El Dorado, a public school champion. I wouldn't be inclined to say Beebe had appointed Walton lobby pushovers.

They'll replace Mary Jane Rebick of Little Rock, who had herself emerged as a standup independent on charter school issues, and Ted Knight.

BEEBE NEWS RELEASE

Governor Mike Beebe today appointed Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock and Alice Mahony of El Dorado to the Arkansas State Board of Education.

Ledbetter, 52, served six years in the Arkansas House of Representatives. In 2003, he worked with legislative leaders to develop the funding formula for Arkansas schools implemented to comply with the Arkansas Supreme Court's 2002 Lake View ruling. He went on to co-chair the Joint Budget Committee in 2005.

A graduate of the UALR Bowen School of Law, Ledbetter has been licensed to practice law in Arkansas for nearly 25 years, specializing in environmental cases.

Mahony, 58, is co-founder of the El Dorado Education Foundation, which has started innovative Chair Programs designed to build math, science and foreign-language skills for students. The Foundation also provides grants to teachers who develop their own creative approaches to education.

Currently enrolled in the MBA program at Harding University, Mahony holds a bachelor's degree from John Brown University. She is also the Chairman of the Board for the El Dorado Chamber of Commerce and serves on the El Dorado Promise Committee.

An Earle fireifghter has been suspended indefinitely for saying NFL protestors should be shot. He's apologized. The Fire Department has distanced itself from the comments.

Here's the open line. Also, the day's roundup of news and comment.

More evidence in the Washington Post that voter ID laws suppress votes, particularly among groups likely to vote Democratic. And the evidence is from Wisconsin, where a microscopic victory gave Donald Trump that state's electoral votes.

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State Auditor Andrea Lea, who began her tenure in statewide office with a degree of competence unseen in some other Republican counterparts (think Treasurer Dennis Milligan particularly), is becoming more deeply mired in a political scandal.

Little Rock police have identified two women found dead of gunshot wounds in an SUV parked next to a vacant trailer in a mobile home park at 11500 Chicot Road.

Great piece in Washington Post on the budget crisis in Louisiana. Big tax cuts and corporate welfare will do that to a state, particularly to a state whose previous governor, Republican Bobby Jindal, refused to join the Obamacare-funded Medicaid expansion. There's a lesson there for Arkansas.

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Diane Ravitch, a powerful voice against the billionaires trying to replace an egalitarian public education system with a fractured system of winners and losers segregated by race and income in private or privately operated schools, is giving a shoutout to Barclay Key of Little Rock for his review of Little Rock 60 years after the school crisis.

In which I fix an overlooked speaker in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's coverage of the observance of the 60th anniversary of Central High School desegregation

HempStaff's four-hour course is designed to prepare participants for work in a medical marijuana dispensary so that business owners are getting educated and well-prepared candidates when they start to fill new positions.

More evidence in the Washington Post that voter ID laws suppress votes, particularly among groups likely to vote Democratic. And the evidence is from Wisconsin, where a microscopic victory gave Donald Trump that state's electoral votes.